All the family legends point to the Staffordshire house of RUGGELEY, as the source
of the RUGGLES family of Essex and of Suffolk, but in two migrations separated by a
period of two hundred years. The first is claimed to trace from William DE RUGGELE
of Stafford, thirteenth century, who having incurred the royal displeasure, and
suffered banishment from the kingdom, was known to have established a new home
in Flanders. Although, for service in the Wars, he had subsequently received the
pardon of his sovereign, King Edward I, he never returned to the land of his birth.
Three of his sons, however, are said to have crossed the Straits of Dover, and to
have settled in the County of Essex and from them, it is alleged, the early generations
in that and the adjoining counties, descended. Children of a fourth son went
to Switzerland and the name (RUGGLE) is still perpetuated there. The later migration,
according to John Sydney HAWKINS, the biographer in 1787 of George RUGGLES,
a founder of Virginia and an eminent scholar of the reign of King James I, was from
Warwick to Lincoln, and thence to Suffolk, being a branch from Nichohs RUGGELEY,
Lord of the Manors of Hawkesbeard in Stafford and Downton-Ruggeley, in Warwick.
It was this second migration which supplied later the Puritan emigrants to New England
as well as the English RUGGLES family of Spains Hall, Essex. In support of the
first claim, it has been pointed out that RIETSTAP discovered the family in Flanders
and in his "Armorial Général" has recorded for that family the same arms as those
given by English authorities as the bearings of the Staffordshire house. Though
RIETSTAP’s work registers some English arms, he mentions no other RUGGELEY, than
the branch in Flanders. The identity of coat-armor has always, been held to be
confirmatory of a common origin, and Dr. BARBER in his work on British family
names, edition 1903, cites such identity for RUGGELEY, of Stafford and RUGGLES
of Essex. The name RUGGELEY, in England is now extinct, and only in those having
the name of RUGGLES is the stock represented there.

[Mackenzie, George Norbury, "Colonial Families of the United States of America", VII:429-30]

Principal Sources

This is not a complete list of my Ruggles sources;
See the Sources button, above,
for the complete detailed list of all 120 of those.
Use the Annex button to see individual citations (and other notes).
Use the book icon link
()
to see details about a particular source.
They are listed here in relevance order;
i.e. the first had the most citations.

NIQUETTE, Ron ; "Rising Moon Genealogical Services"

RUGGLES, Henry Stoddard; "The Ruggles family, England and America"

LDS; Ancestral File (AF)

Brøderbund Software, Inc.; WFT 05

HAWLEY, Emily C; "Annals of Brookfield, Fairfield County, CT"

Brøderbund Software, Inc.; WFT 04

SAVAGE, James; "Genealogical Dictionary of First Settlers of New England" (4 vols)